Maybe not replace. Supplement, sure. Kinda like card catalogs don't replace librarians.

I'm a unicorn. No one knows what to do with my diseases. I've been told, with absolute certainty, for 25+ years that my worst one will eventually go away.

Finding effective treatments are more the result of drunken sailor's walk thru the solution space, than finding a leaf in a decision tree. I believe (but cannot prove) that'll be true of all rare multi-factor diseases.

The key point, advice is to never stop asking for help. Someone, somewhere out there has the answer.

300 USD per hour pays the medical assistants, support staff, rent, electricity, taxes, etc. The number that employee physicians (a much more typical case than private cash-only practices) gross is closer to USD 95 per hour, assuming a 40 hour workweek and an annual salary of 200 000 USD. (Few physicians work only 40 hours per week, so the real number is much, much lower.)

Just give me a Watson iPhone app that kicks me out to a professional if it can't confidently diagnose.

I am appreciative when medical staff is required. But when it's not, ruthless automation must be out into place to contain costs.

Do you believe that you have or can quickly acquire the specialized domain knowledge and experience necessary to accuately describe your conditions for the expert system? Do you think you can sufficiently document your findings in your medical record? Do you foresee any problems in occupying both the patient and diagnostician role?

Automated triage systems are already used at intake for urgent care clinics. They suck, partly because GIGO.

Certainly there are things that could be automated.

The challenge would be in creating software that can intelligently interact with a patient to surface the actual facts.

Humans are infinitely variable and read and interpret clues that we've barely identified let alone figured out how to automate reliably.

But that doesn't mean it's not possible. Machines will, one day, do this BETTER than humans can.

I would be ecstatic if a machine could do my future job better than I could. That means more patients are being saved.

We could also open up the medical schools so we don't have to pay them $300/hr.

And the other various diagnostic roles that require less training than an MD/DO, nurse practitioners and physicians assistants and so on.